The Street Brawl
From 910 Arena Wiki
Contents |
What is the Street?
The patch of ruined city known only as Brawl Street is somewhat of a curiosity, as its origins are unclear. However, it is a prominent place in Tandy, as it is one of the only locations that is utterly and completely lawless. It has recently been revealed to be a Genius Loci, or a patch of land which has it's own personality, and it will influence people in it's borders to be more aggressive. The Street Brawl is exactly that; a person staying inside it for more than an hour without engaging in a fight is a strong-willed person indeed.
The Street's Personality
The Street isn't so much sentient as it is... Viral. Should the Street infect a mind completely, it will, like an ideal gas, expand to fill it's container. By this I mean that should the Street enter a person's mind, it will use any and all memories, emotions and influences it can to completely overwhelm the host. It does not have any objective, as such, but rather this is simply what its effect is. A virus holds no ulterior motive other than to infect and multiply inside its host, even if it ends up killing it, and in a similar way the Street seeks only to overcome a mind completely and turn it into something resembling psychopathic.
The Creation of the Street
The Street was made because of a high density of emotion and magic in the same area, to put it simply, and it had these factors as a constant for well over a year. Its creation is very much the same as the Knife's genesis, in that they are both creatures born of magic and ambient emotion. Magic has a tendency to form a personality, as seen in magic swords and artifacts all over the place, and it does this by acting as a catalyst for any emotion that comes in contact with it. Spells cast in rage are therefore more potent, etc.
In this way a sufficiently large battleground that is fought over for long enough, an area like the Street may, possibly, form it's own personality from the most prominent emotions released through magical ways inside it. In layman's terms, enough angry spells for long enough will cause an angry magical personality.
Effects and Symptoms
The Street is mainly made up of anger, fear, determination and hostility. It cannot infect people without a long exposure to them or a certain magical means, like the influence of blood magic (as seen with Roon, who also LIVED there). The worst symptoms a person would feel is such a Genius Loci is a slight exaggeration of the emotions that correspond with the personality they are around.
Genius Loci aren't especially dangerous unless they get access to too much magic. As a Genius Loci needs magic to live, it will 'die' should it's supply run out. Leaving the Street for a month would probably cripple it, if not kill it.
